


Sing To Love

by SpoopyNoodles



Category: Original Work
Genre: Canon Gay Relationship, Chick-Flick Moments, F/F, Original Character(s), Original Fiction, Original Universe, POV Original Female Character, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-06
Updated: 2018-06-06
Packaged: 2019-05-18 21:51:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14860944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpoopyNoodles/pseuds/SpoopyNoodles
Summary: Elaine Chapman is a bit different than all of her friends. Elaine is gay. Christian Hert, Elaine's best friend, has an older sister named Lauren. Lauren Hert is cute, nice, fun to be around, and taken. Elaine has a bunch of pent up emotions toward Lauren, most of which are romantic. Can Elaine live with trying to be a homewrecker? And can she even woo Lauren with her singing voice and sick personality? Find out in this emotional rollercoaster, Sing To Love.





	1. Chapter 1

Elaine sighed as she stared blankly at the wall of the dim coffee shop. She scratched at the side of her face absentmindedly, brushing some of her short brown hair into her pale grey eyes. Like usual, Christian, her childhood best friend, was late to their annual weekend brunch.

Christian was really sweet and caring, his blonde hair was shaggy and mop-like, and his green eyes were wide and full of childlike wonder 99% of the time. They had been friends since they were born, because their families were really close, and the two of them had always loved music ever since they were really little. As of now, junior year of high school, they had a pop-punk band with their friends Dylan and Kyle called 'Toxic Enigma', and had a really good reputation because of it.

The only thing that made Elaine a little different from all of her other friends, and that was the fact that she was openly homosexual. Nobody ever really had a problem with it, in fact she was just considered one of the guys, the only problem was that Christain's older sister Lauren was stupid cute, and openly bisexual.

Christian made it very clear that he didn't care if Elaine dated Lauren the second she came out, but that didn't make her feel any less weird about liking her, and it didn't change the fact that Lauren was way too far out of her league.

Elaine checked her watch and counted rolled her eyes as she started counting down, 3, 2, 1. As if on cue, Christian burst through the door to the little cafe, exasperated.

"I'm so sorry Lu, I was playing Zelda and lost track of time," he rushed, unaware of the fact that Elaine had mimicked what he said word for word.

Elaine rolled her eyes, but slowly a smile played at her lips, she had a little nickname she could use to her advantage. Christian always disliked it when people turned his name into a joke about religion, and unfortunately for him, that was Elaine's favorite thing to do.

"It's alright, Jesus," she said back, snickering, knowing he hated when she made that joke.

His face dropped and he let out a monotone, "Really?" while crossing his arms.

She giggled and said, "Sorry Christian, I've started saying it..... Religiously!"

Christian sighed and shook his head, snickering and letting a smile play at his lips. The two fell into easy conversation, going over some new songs for their band to cover.

"So, I've got a list of songs to choose from, Dylan and Kyle narrowed it down some, so I need you to help pick from the four," Elaine said after taking a sip of coffee.

"What do we have it narrowed down to?" Christian questioned around a chocolate muffin.

"Wonderwall, Savior by Rise Against, I Miss You by Blink-182, and Meant To Live by Switchfoot," she lists off, "and before you say anything, nobody else is in favor of Wonderwall, Kyle just keeps jokingly putting it in my notes and told me that if I didn't bring it up he's gonna Sharpie my face." A smile is present in her face as she rolls her eyes.

Christian sighs and says with a smile, "We're not doing Wonderwall, Kyle is such a nerd," he pulls the paper toward himself and hums a bit, "I Miss You is a bit repetitive, in my opinion," he says after a moment, passing the paper back across the table so Elaine can cross it off.

"That's what I thought, too," she said while crossing it out.

Elaine and Christian sat for a moment, and she was too caught up in her thoughts to notice Christian shift his gaze above her slightly or the sly smile that took over his face.

Elaine sat, end of the pen brushing against her lip as she stared at the two song choices until a soft, sweet voice filled her ears and made it's presence known.

"Meant To Live would suit your voice better."

Elaine jumped and looked upward sharply toward the source, to end up face to face with the strawberry blonde, green eyed beauty that is Lauren Hert, older sister of Christian Hert.

"Hey Lauren," Elaine huffed out, a blush spread out across her cheeks.

"Hi LuLu," Lauren replied, smile taking over her features and crinkling by her eyes.

Lauren knew that 'Lu' and 'LuLu' we're things Elaine only really ever let Christian call her, so she thought she was being annoying by teasing her with the name, but it just made her a bit flustered.

Elaine slowly looked back down to Christian, who had an evil smirk overtaking his features, and she glared back at him until he broke their little staring contest.

"I guess it's settled then, we're covering Meant To Live," he said, watching his sister pull out a side chair between himself and Elaine while smirking.

Elaine blew her bangs out of her face and nodded, crossing out Savior. After she was done, she tossed the pen and let it twirl in the air before catching it and clicking the butt of it against the tabletop to tuck it behind her ear.

She looked up as Christian let out a low whistle and threw his crumpled straw packet at her.

"That was hot, for a nerd," he said, laughter imminent in his voice.

Elaine smiled, "I can't help it if I'm spicy," she said, throwing him finger guns, receiving a laugh in return.

Elaine glanced over at Lauren and saw a warm smile spread across her features that Lu had to jolt her head away from to avoid gushing over.

Christian checked the time on his phone and went white as a sheet, he hurriedly apologized and left to go pick his girlfriend Jess up from work. Elaine nodded after him and assumed that Lauren left as well.

She tucked an earphone into one ear and turned on her music station, which happened to be playing The A Team by Ed Sheeran. She was humming along, and slowly she softly started to sing along, voice carrying out smoothly and sounding like silk.

She sings it word for word, in time, in key, with technique, pulling together the works for what would be a great solo cover if she wanted to. She closed her eyes and let her other senses flood, the scent of coffee flooded her nose, the sound of the music and the hushed clinking of silverware against plates filled her ears, the taste of leftover coffee and pastry took over her mouth, and the warm air around her comforted her.

There's a small thud from the side of the table that draws Elaine out from her spaced out state, she looks over to see Lauren sitting there, fists clenched on top of the table and face dusted with a brutal pink, and a soft yet unyielding gaze fixed upon Elaine.

"Um," Elaine stutters, turning off her music for the time being, "Sorry, I didn't realize you were still here."

Lauren simply stares at little LuLu before saying breathlessly, "Wow. That was so beautiful."

What she said seemed to have come out without a brain-to-mouth filter, and it took Elaine a moment to connect the words into a sentence with meaning. When she pieced it together, a pink flush took over Elaine's face, and Lauren' s eyes seemed to widen in response to Elaine's blush.

Unknown to Elaine, who was still in mental shock, Lauren's lips curled up into an indescribable smile, and she covered it with her hand. Lauren took her own face into her hands and stared at the table for a moment before turning back toward Elaine.

"Hey, um, Lu? I'm gonna go, I have some... Homework to do. Keep up the good work," Lauren says hurriedly before standing up and speedwalking out the door to her car.

"That was... An experience," Elaine mumbles to herself quietly.

Elaine doesn't bother turning her music back on or finishing her coffee, she throws her almost empty cup away and walks out the door over to her motorcycle. She stands next to it for a moment and runs a hand through her pixie cut before grabbing her helmet and climbing on. She was definitely going on a ride to the old abandoned Louis Brown Park to think.


	2. In the wood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elaine writes some poetry at the river and thinks about part of her past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a bit of a warning, there is mentioned violence here, but it is very brief. So if you do have a trigger when talking about assault and shitty ex girlfriends, feel free to skip over the backstory with Caitlyn.

Elaine got off of her motorcycle and perched it on a flat area next to a thick oak tree. After she tossed her helmet onto the handlebar, she began to wander down a familiar path. The path itself was littered with pine needles, twigs, and moss, and you could hardly tell it was a path anymore.

The state had built Louis Brown as a hiking and recreation area, but it was way out of town and the road to it was hard to find because it was surrounded by old fallen boulders from the cliff side. Elaine had only ran into someone here once before, it had been a girl her age named Caitlyn, Elaine's first, only, and last girlfriend.

Caitlyn and Elaine were really never right for each other, they had opposite opinions and argued all the time. Every conversation they had ended in a fight, and they both knew they'd have to break it off eventually. However, how they ended it was far from ideal...

Elaine had taken Caitlyn out to see a movie, it was fun, they didn't speak to each other throughout it once. As they were walking out, Elaine had gotten dragged into an alleyway by some sleazy guy who was planning on mugging her. Caitlyn simply followed them into the alleyway without a care in the world, as if she hadn't noticed the strange guy who had tried to pull Elaine from her. The man had pulled out a knife and pushed it against Elaine's abdomen, which finally caught Caitlyn's attention. But Caitlyn ran. Caitlyn left Elaine to get robbed of the money she had on her, and to get a deep cut across her entire lower torso.

After that, Caitlyn ghosted Elaine. She had zero contact. Elaine only recently learned that Caitlyn moved across the country a few years back, and she was glad to know she would have no chance of seeing her again.

Elaine absentmindedly rubbed her hand along the scar as she walked down to the river, already pulling her bag off of her shoulder to write. She sat down at the edge of a rock and pulled off her sneakers, dipping her feet into the current. She unzipped her bag and pulled out her notebook and pencil.

She stared out as she thought. It was hard to turn anything into a song, and often her writing would be set aside as poetry. She scribbled a few words down that described how she felt in that moment, but when she re-read it, it definitely wasn't a song.

'Rivers are like emotions, flowing and flowing until there's too much. Loved ones are like fish, climbing your rivers to get to the source. Hearts are like beaches, often stomped on, squished, and defiled. She's like a seagull, majestic, beautiful, free, and shitting on my beach.'

Elaine laughed loudly to herself at what she had wrote, and reminded herself to show Christian later. She put her notebook back in her bag and simply stared around her at the flowing river and tall trees and let the sunlight soak into her skin.

She started to hum The A Team when Christian texted her and asked her to come over and hang out. She replied saying she'd be a minute because she's at Louis Brown, and he simply told her he was looking forward to seeing her writing.

Elaine grabbed her bag and stood, taking one last big breath in before walking back down the trail to her bike. She climbed on and put on the helmet, revving the engine of it a couple times before pulling out and speeding down the highway.


	3. Hopes dropped on the daily

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elaine comes over to Christian's house, but she sees something that kills her hope. What did she see?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has brief mentions of cutting, if it is triggering for you please skip past the description of Ally.

Elaine knocked on the door of the Hert's mini-mansion. Christians parent's were part of a CEO partnership at Google, and therefore made a hefty amount of cash. They were surprisingly modest with it though, considering how much they had. There was a big pool in the back, and the house was huge compared to Elaine's. Mr. and Mrs. Hert often let their kids hold parties in the downstairs area due to the sheer size of the house and how quiet and empty it seemed otherwise.

The door was opened by none other than Alexandra, or Ally, Lauren's girlfriend. Elaine's mood dropped immediately and she stepped in the door and rushed up the stairs the second Ally moved out of the way.

Elaine didn't have anything against Ally, she was just upset she couldn't compare to her. Ally was rather short, with dirty blonde hair and big chocolate brown eyes and permanently sun-kissed cheeks. She was sweet, be it a touch hyper, and an all around fun person. Elaine didn't know much about where she came from, minus the fact that she was scar central. It always upset everyone that such a bright and happy girl could have gone through a tough enough time to resort to that.

Elaine put on a fake rushed smile and opened Christian's door, who turned and smiled at her before noticing her tense, fake smile and frowning. Elaine sighs and closes the door behind her, letting her face droop and launching herself face first onto Christian soft bed.

"What happened, what's the face?" He said, patting Elaine's back soothingly.

"Ally is over and I've lost all hope on fulfilling my gay dreams," Elaine replied, voice muffled by the pillow she pressed her face into.

Christian let out a soft chuckle and hoisted Elaine up by the shoulders so that she was sitting up on the bed with him, he scooted her bag toward her and said, "Well then, let's take your mind off then.. What did you write today?"

Elaine smiled and grabbed her notebook out of her bag and turned it to the page she had been writing on earlier. She found her little poem and showed it to him, giggling.

Christian laughed loudly, falling back onto the bed dramatically and then rolling forward again. "We should ask Lauren if she'll make this her senior quote," he said, still fighting off some giggles.

Elaine smiled and replied, "Well we'd better change it so it's less specific to one person."

Christian nodded, and Elaine turned the page and rewrote it but extremely vague, replacing 'she' with 'pretty people' and cleaning it up overall. She passed it back to Christian who smiled, tore it out, and checked the clock.

"We haaaaave.... 2 minutes to kill until Ally has to leave for curfew, so would you mind helping me past this boss on Zelda? We both know you're way better at the game than me," Christian said, leaning toward Elaine and fluttering his eyes like a flirty drunk girl.

Elaine laughed and nodded, grabbing the controller that was being nudged toward her. Christian turned on his console, and Elaine fired up the game, getting super into it. Christian was watching the clock, and the front door thudded shut exactly when he said it would. Elaine was too caught up to hear the patter of footsteps coming up the stairs and approaching Christian's door, which opened suddenly to reveal Lauren, scaring Elaine enough to make her fall off the bed.

Christian laughed at Elaine while he helped her up off the floor, and Lauren chuckled at her behind a hand. Elaine hit pause and bounced up off the floor like nothing happened, causing the two to laugh harder. After a moment the laughter died down, and Christian and Elaine looked to Lauren to see why she came up.

"I heard Elaine come in, and we have extra dinner as usual, so I brought two bowls up for you guys, I also thought we could hang out because I'm all caught up on work and I know you guys are ahead, and I'm bored as hell now that Ally left.." She shrugs nonchalantly, presenting the two bowls of spaghetti like they're peace offerings.

Christian looks at her skeptically, "Ally literally just left, I heard the door," he said, squinting at her with his head cocked to the side like a puppy, while also taking a bowl from her hand.

"And I have nothing else planned, so I thought I'd come up," Lauren said again, almost urgently this time.

Elaine grabbed the other bowl from Lauren, hip bumping Christian as he slurps a noodle, and says, "Okay, do whatever, little Jesus over here is just having me beat a Zelda boss for him because he's incapable." She ruffled Christian's hair and then twirled her fork and took a bite of some spaghetti.

Christian jabbed her in the side jokingly, and Elaine slapped his hand out of reflex, receiving an "Ooowwwwww, meany!" in return.

Lauren chuckled at the two's banter and crawled across the bed to sit next to Elaine, earning an eyebrow wiggle from her younger brother who she swatted at, getting another groan of protest from him.

"This is best boy abuse," he whined, flailing his arms jokingly around like a 5 year old.

Elaine leaned over and flicked him in response, causing an eruption of giggles to take over the room. Elaine glanced over at Lauren, who had been the first to start giggling, but quickly had to look back at the screen and try and cool down her blush. Christian, unfortunately, saw and elbowed Elaine.

"I saw that LuLu, you ain't suave, you thrown out chicken mc nobody," he said, catching the attention of Lauren.

Elaine took the challenge. It was an inside joke between the two to try and find the most random, weird, and funny thing to use as an insult between them. Christian won most of the time, but that doesn't mean that Elaine doesn't make for good competition.

"What'd she do?" Lauren asked in between fits of giggles.

"She fumbled with the controller and then tried to play it off like it didn't happen," He said back, winking at Elaine discreetly.

Elaine's face grew a darker shade of pink as she beat the boss faster than ever out of spite.

"Fumbled, and still won faster than you could ever drreeaaam, you baloney and bird-shit sandwich," she said smugly.

A smile took over Christian's face he grabbed the torn out paper with the poem, "What a great segway you made there, Lu," he said, chuckling.

Elaine looked confused for a moment until she saw the paper, and then she burst out laughing and almost fell off the bed again. Lauren just looked flat out confused until the paper was handed to her.

"Emotions are like rivers, they keep flowing and flowing until there's too much  
Loved-Ones are like fish, swimming up stream until they get to the source  
Hearts are like beaches, they can get stomped on and defiled  
Pretty people are like seagulls, beautiful, free, and constantly shitting all over my beach," She mumbled out as she read before she fell into yet another bout of laughter.

"That's a yearbook quote, right there," she said as best she could as she laughed, "Would you mind if I used this, Elaine? I'd credit you."

"Go right on ahead," Elaine replied, smiling, "Christian was gonna ask if you wanted to anyway."

Lauren thanked them and smiled a big, bright, genuine smile. The kind of smile that contorts your whole face, it wrinkles your eyes and makes your cheeks ache. Elaine turned again, smiling to herself with a tomato red face.

This year was gonna suck.


	4. Unresolved

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elaine is working through some stuff, in her family and in her head. Will Lauren's presence help or hurt? And what is Elaine going to do when she gets away?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is longer than the others, with a lot of mood swings and rapid change in emotion because Elaine is feeling extremely vulnerable. I will tell you ahead of time that Elaine isn't going to do something triggering in the next chapter, but this will be turning into a (hopefully) extremely slow burn.

Elaine unlocked the front door of her house and stepped inside. The Chapman house was rather small, with a living area, two bedrooms, a bathroom, a small kitchen, and a backyard that was half the size of their house. Mr. and Mrs. Chapman had decent jobs, they payed enough, but it wasn't like either of them were the CEO of Google or anything.

Elaine was an only child, so she didn't have to share much of anything, but she did have to deal with an overprotective and slightly homophobic mother and father.

"Elaine! Were you at Christian's?" Her father called from his suede chair in the living room.

"Of course, dad," she hollered back, pulling her sneakers off and taking off her grey bomber jacket.

"See any cute girls today, hunny?" Her mom asked from the kitchen as Elaine stepped into the living room.

Elaine sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose, "No, ma', I didn't."

"That's a shame dear.. Any cute boys then?" She questioned again, a glint of hope in her voice.

"I'm a lesbian, mom," Elaine called back.

"I know dear, I just thought--"

"I don't like boys, I never have, we've been over this several times. I'll adopt, okay? Just stop doing that, it makes me uncomfortable," Elaine snapped, growing irritable.

Her father jumped in to 'save' the situation. "Don't talk to your mother like that, young lady, I don't care what kind of freak of nature you are, you don't get to--"

"I'm going back over to Christian's, see you next week maybe," Elaine said, already putting her shoes back on and grabbing her jacket.

"Elaine!"

She slammed the door.

This happened almost every time she came home, sooner or later. She didn't even get a chance to set her bag down this time. Her parents didn't mean to be that way, they were just ignorant to how sexuality works.

Elaine hopped onto the motorcycle' s still warm seat and put the helmet on. She revved the engine once and pulled out and left as quickly as she could. She rode down the dark streets, illuminated only by the orange glow of the street lights. She turned a street corner and sniffed, shook her head, and told herself not to cry. She rode down until she could see the Hert's house in sight and slowed down to a stop before she reached it.

She ran to the Hert's every time her parents casual homophobia got to be too much, was she being a burden? Did they not like her coming to them for help? Was she a nuisance?

Tears flowed down Elaine's pale freckled face as she turned her bike off to reduce noise. She planned to just camp there for a bit to cry and then head for Louis Brown Park and sleep in the old recreation center for the night.

"Elaine?" A voice broke into her thoughts.

Elaine looked up and tried to focus on the person's face through the tears, but couldn't manage to see anything but a blob of strawberry blonde hair, meaning it was probably Mrs. Hert.

"Yes?" Elaine replied, sniffling and wiping her eyes.

"I- I heard your bike pulling up the street, and got worried when you didn't knock at the door.." The faceless lady replied cautiously.

"Am I nuisance?" Elaine blurted, "Do I annoy you guys when I come over all the time? Do I just need to put up with all of it? Keep it to myself?"

A pair of warm, comforting arms wrapped around Elaine, and a hand came up and ran through her hair.

"Oh, Elaine.. Of course you don't, I- We love you like you're our family. All of us are so unbelievably sorry that you go through this, and that we haven't said anything to your parents about how it affects you. Don't you ever think differently, okay?" The lady soothed, running her hand through Elaine's hair.

"Okay," Elaine croaked, finally hugging the mystery Mrs. Hert back.

They stayed there for a moment longer before the mystery Hert started guiding Elaine to their house, pulling the motorcycle behind. The garage door was opened, and Elaine stared at the ground as her bike was pushed into the garage. As the person came back after closing the door, Elaine let out a small yawn, and the person let out a soft chuckle before leading Elaine upstairs and into a bedroom.

Elaine didn't bother looking around at her surroundings, because her vision was still rather blurry, she simply tore her shoes off and peeled her jacket away. Elaine reached up and hugged her savior one last time before sitting back down on the bed she was led to and rubbing her eyes. The top of Elaine's head was ruffled, and Mrs. Mystery helped Elaine lay down on the soft mattress.

Elaine layed down and had the blankets pulled over her, her savior sat down on the bed next to her and ran their fingers through her hair until Elaine drifted off to sleep.

"Silly little LuLu,"

\--------------------------------------------------------------

Elaine awoke the next morning with a stretch before she opened her eyes. When she did open them, she glanced around the room to figure out where she was, only to freeze in shock. She was in Lauren's room, meaning she slept in Lauren's bed, meaning Lauren saw her bawling her eyes out and led her upstairs.

Elaine groaned and rubbed a hand up her face before laying back down again and trying to bury herself in the covers out of shame. Before she could get out of her rut and get up to leave, the door opened. Elaine peeked as best she could through one squinted eye at whoever had come in, only to see Lauren in a towell. Elaine shut her eye immediately and did her best to discreetly roll over on her other side.

She listened as the footsteps stopped and padded over to where she layed, pretending to be asleep. Her whole body tensed until a soft hand carefully and gently moved her hair out of her face. She forced herself to relax and even out her own breathing to fight off the blush that was starting to heat up her face. The sound of footsteps walked away and stopped, and a drawer was opened. When it grew silent again, Elaine assumed she was safe.

Elaine sat up and stretched again, and fluttered her eyes open as gracefully as possible. She let her eyes wander again, only to see a startled Lauren in nothing but underwear.

"Oh God, I'm sorry!" Elaine said, picking a pillow up and smothering her face in it.

"No! No, don't worry about it, I didn't mean to wake you up, I was just getting dressed. I kind of forgot you were there," Lauren rushed, flustered.

'Forgot I was here my ass, did you do that on purpose?' Elaine thought.  
Well, two can play at that game, whatever it is.

"I'm just going to sneak past you, then," Elaine said, slowly pulling the blankets away from herself to show where her yellow sundress had gotten pulled up above her hips to reveal sleak black bottoms.

Elaine took the pillow away from her face and looked down, pretending to be shocked when she 'noticed' that her dress was above her hips. She quickly stood and pulled it down, glancing over at Lauren, she saw that she was definitely pink, and that her 'payback' worked.

Elaine started to awkwardly sidestep toward the door, growing uncomfortable and genuinely embarrassed about what she just did, but Lauren stopped her.

"Elaine, I wouldn't step out that door quite yet," she said snickering.

Elaine looked up at Lauren, who was still very much only in her underwear, and raised an eyebrow at her.

"The under part of your dress. I can still see your underwear," Lauren said, gesturing vaguely at the lower half of Elaine's body while trying to cover a blush with her hand.

"Oh fuck, right, thanks," Elaine said, pulling the dress back up in order to be able to pull all of it back down again, "This has been harrowing, I'm gonna go make breakfast now, ciao," Elaine rushed, speed walking toward the door and avoiding eye contact.

Elaine quickly stepped out and shut the door again before facepalming herself and catching the smallest chuckle from behind the door. She quickly raced down the stairs and slid into the kitchen on her socks, she grabbed pancake mix, bacon and eggs and got to work.

While she cooked, Elaine turned her Bluetooth speaker on quiet to sing along to. Drops Of Jupiter by Train came on, and she danced and sang around the Hert's kitchen as she made breakfast for everybody. She sang along smoothly, creating yet another possible cover idea.

She noticed Christian come in and sit at the bar, swaying his head along with Elaine's singing as she span. She smiled at him and flashed him finger guns as she drifted over to the bacon, and as she turned, she saw Lauren watching her intently from the staircase. Elaine almost stuttered, but she turned away again and kept working and having fun as she did.

The next song came on, which was Stupid For You by Waterparks, and the grin on Elaine's face widened as she turned toward Christian. Christian had already stood and made his way over to Elaine to play air guitar along with her singing. Waterparks was the first concert the two had ever gone to, and this was their favorite song to play during band practice.

Elaine spun in perfect pirouettes while headbanging, slowing during slow parts, and rocking out in fast parts. Christian ran around the kitchen, sliding on his knees and getting into his fake guitar playing. When the song ended, they gave each other a high five and Christian went to sit back down.

There was an ad that played almost immediately after Waterparks, leaving enough time for Elaine and Christian to catch their breath and calm down. The ad had been something about suntan lotion, talking about how you needed to protect your skin from the sun, even though summer had technically already ended.

The 3rd song started to play after the ad, and Elaine's mood immediately dampened, but she wiped her face and transitioned into A Drop In The Ocean by Ron Pope. Elaine had a lot of history with this song, it was the song she shared with Caitlyn, it was the song she always put on when she was breaking down in tears, when she felt lost, when she just wanted somebody to cling to but nobody was there, when the one person she's liked forever gets together with someone else who she can't compare to.

She carefully took everything off the stove and set it on the counter before sitting down on the floor at staring at her hands, helplessly singing along, still clear and beautiful as ever, with only the occasional crack of emotion.

Tears streamed down her face for the second time in 24 hours, but this one seemed almost freeing, in a sense, singing it in front of the person who caused her to listen to it. It slowly came to an end, and Elaine turned her head slightly toward Lauren, who was staring at the hurricane of raw and pure emotion that is Elaine Chapman.

Elaine looked forward and shook her head, a pained smile on her face. She wiped her face and stood abruptly, turned completely away from Lauren and turned off her Bluetooth.

"Breakfast is ready, I'm going out to Louis Brown," She croaked out, wiping her eye one last time.

"Wait, LuLu, at least eat something first!" Christian chased after Elaine frantically, panic edging into his voice.

Elaine turned toward him, smile wavering and eyes puffy. Christians face fell into pity and he slowly walked toward her, he pulled her close and hugged her tight, she loosely wrapped her arms around him briefly.

"Don't do anything stupid," he said, releasing her from the hug.

She nodded, glanced over at Lauren, and turned and walked out. She opened the garage and dragged out her motorcycle. As she was about to turn the key, the front door slammed, and she turned to see Lauren rushing out after her. She shook her head and started her bike, pulled out, and left.

Maybe this year would suck less...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dun dun dunnnnnn, what she gonna do?


End file.
